Page 56 of Four Dates and A Forever
“Good, why?”
“Well, I wanted to talk about the final lineup.”
Gage looked at his watch. “At eight? On a Tuesday?”
“I thought today we were going over the logistics of the event.” He looked at the door. “Where is everyone?”
“Probably in bed with their wives since the meeting is scheduled fortomorrowat eight. And since when do you help with the event?”
“I help every year.”
“No, you give me a list of musicians, then leave the rest up to the rest of us. You haven’t helped with the logistics since you started dating Steph.”
Had it been that long? And since when had he become the guy who left his brothers hanging? Steph hadn’t been all that big on spending time with Rhett’s family. After the way his mom treated her during the planning of the wedding, he didn’t blame her. But it was one of the points of contention during their short marriage.
But he’d been divorced going on a year now and he still hadn’t been pulling his weight. And that was on him.
“Well, I want to do more.” This year he needed to be around family. Needed to play a bigger role, to feel a part of something instead of being the something. “I’ve been thinking about mentoring some of the musicians. Help them pick their music, really give some one-on-one advice.”
His brother’s eyes went wide. “What about your schedule and your writing? It sounds like you’re on a roll.”
“I am, but I really need this album to pop and I think I can do that better by going back to a time before everything changed. To work with musicians who are still hungry and raw. Remember what it was like to jam with some of Dad’s old cronies at the bar. I want to give to these kids that same chance I was given.”
“Does this sudden change in your involvement have anything to do with the roommate whose party you crashed?” Before Rhett could deny anything, Gage said, “Shawn of the Dead?”
Rhett groaned. “I didn’t really crash it, I was helping.” Then he’d gone and kissed Elsie and she’d nearly ripped his clothes off. God, he could still taste her on his lips. “How do you even know I was at the party?”
“You’re an Easton, bro. The minute you ditched an appearance to go to a gender reveal party, the women in the family started talking. All it took was a few calls for Mom to get to the bottom of it.”
“Mom made some calls?” God, he hoped Claire didn’t put two and two together and come up with Rhett de-corseting Elsie in the front seat of his car. Even worse, he didn’t need his mom sniffing around his personal life.
“What did you expect her to do. The woman could get Castro to give up his deepest darkest secrets.”
Margo’s love was fierce and unwavering, but it fed into her habit of inserting herself into her sons’ private lives. She’d nearly chased off every one of his brothers’ wives and girlfriends. Elsie was already relationship-shy, the last thing he needed was his mom poking around and giving Elsie one more reason to say no.
“Shit.”
“Is that a problem?” Gage asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know.” Rhett rubbed a hand down his face. Jesus, when was the last time he’d slept through the night? Not since his divorce.
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to talk about it?”
“Both.”
Gage dropped his feet to the ground, leaned forward and rested his elbows on the desk, with aYou stepped in itgrin.
“What?” Rhett snapped.
“Nothing. Just the great Rhett Easton has found the one person in the world who won’t give in to his charm.”
“Not for a lack of trying.”
“So you tried and… ?”
“It didn’t go as planned.”
“Usually, you’d move on. What’s different?”
